Conversations
by Unrepentantly Human
Summary: A collection of one-shots of some of the ignored conversations during Talking to Dragon's and life afterward. Somewhat of a companion to Putting Up With Polite People. Still told from Shiara's point of view
1. With a Fire-Witch and His Sister

**A/N **This is to be a collection of one-shots of some of the ignored conversations during the story and life afterward. Still told from Shiara's point of view

**Summary: **Shiara finally get's to talk to another fire-witch about her magic

* * *

For an old friend of Morwen's the fire-witch didn't look that old. I've never been good at telling people's ages but he looked about ten years older than me, maybe. He did look like he'd been through a war, though, half-asleep in front of the fire in a worn bathrobe, with a thick bandage peeking out from beneath his mess of red hair. He jerked when Morwen shut the door, and he turned from the fireplace with a glare. Morwen simply lifted an eyebrow.

"What?" he demanded.

"It's good to see that you're up and around now. I need more bandages, for _my_ stubborn patient and I was hoping that you could answer this girl's questions. Brandel, this is Shiara, she's a fire-witch who's having some trouble controlling her powers. I thought that another fire-witch might be able to help her." She shot him a meaningful look, before turning to me "Shiara, this is Brandel, we ran into his tower on our way to get the sword. He's a fire-witch and he should be able to answer your questions. Alright?" She looked between the two of us sternly.

"Try not to set the castle on fire." And with that she headed out the door in the back of the room

"It wasn't even my tower." Brandel called after her. The door closed in response. He settled back into his chair with a scowl "So what's your problem?"

Hadn't she just told him? Wasn't that bad enough? I bit my tongue and tried to hold back my nerves and temper. "I can't use my magic."

"Any magic?"

"Well, no." Just the kind that counted. "The spells Morwen taught me work fine. But they're not fire-witch magic. And my hair goes up whenever I get angry, but I don't mean to. Whenever I try to actually do any fire-witch magic, nothing happens."

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen"

"And you've been studying with Morwen?"

"Not really, she just taught me a few spells when we were passing through on the way here."

Brandel stared at me. "How do you even know you're a fire-witch?"

I bit my tongue hard enough that I could taste blood, but I managed to hold my back temper, mostly. "Because everyone I meet calls me one as soon as they see me," I gritted out " it's kind of obvious."

"Yes" he said shortly "but how did _you_ know without any sort of training."

"My hair lights on fire when I get mad, isn't it sort of obvious." I snapped.

"That doesn't-" he started but a calm voice interrupted

"What my brother is trying to ask is who first told you that you were a fire-witch?" A woman, about the same age as the fire-witch glided into the room, with an air of calm and a warm smile.

"Fire-witches are very rare. And people generally try to keep babies away from fire, so their immunities generally don't get noticed. Most people see an angry baby with red-headed curls, they put it down to firey red-headed temper and don't to make the extra leap to fire-witch". She sprinkled some powder into the pot above the fire and stirred it carefully.

But "Doesn't the lighting-everything-around-them-one –fire-thing kind of tip people off"

She shook her head "That generally doesn't show up until later in life. Most of the time young fire-witches seem to be ordinary people with a great talent for magic. People will notice the talent and send them off to study to become witches or magicians. It's when they're older, have some control and magical experience that most fire-witches actually develop fire powers." The woman looked up at me over the pot "Before that it generally takes another fire-witch or a skilled practitioner to identify a real fire-witch."

"And anyone who knew that much should have known enough to apprentice you or at least teach you some magic before Morwen gave you a few spells." Brandel jumped in. "I was getting to that, no need to interrupt, Rachel."

"There was an old midwife just passing through town, she told my mother when she delivered me, then went her way."

"A mysterious old crone?" Brandel snorted "Probably a fairy. Flighty little twits, meddling in other people's lives and leaving behind a mess.

"She was likely trying to help." His sister told him, and ignored his second snort. "But there is no question she put you at a disadvantage. Letting you know you had power and then not teaching you an alternate use for it before it had fully developed. I'm willing to wager you gave yourself quite a few headaches trying to will the firewood into a fire."

Hours, before everyone else woke up, glaring at a piece of kindling wishing praying for it to even just smoke a little. The memories rushed up and filled my throat. All I could do was nod.

Rachel gave a small sigh. "I am sorry about that. But that failure, it's natural. I know it doesn't feel like it but fire-witches need a little bit of time without power. It is useful to have a while of being more normal and to learn some more orthodox, less destructive forms of magic. Gain some perspective before having to deal with all that raw power"

"That and villagers tend to look at you funny if you start burning things down without pretending to know what you're doing." He got up out of his chair and started pacing. " A slightly out of control apprentice is one thing but a kid who accidentally lights the nursery on fire and walks out of the nursery is just not normal. They're a freak, an abomination."

A bully, a monster. Something to be avoided at all costs for the safety of the rest of the village, because if you said the wrong thing and set her off.

Rachel's hand on my shoulder jerked me out of it.

"Brandel!" she chided " I agreed you could get out of bed and tend the fire if you promised to sit still and not get too you're going to pace around like that you can go back to bedrest."

"I'm fine."

"Don't give me that. I stitched that gash on your head myself. I know exactly how fine you are. Now go lay down if you want to be at all fit for clean up duty." There was a brief staring contest and then Brandel harrumphed and stalked out the door.

"Clean up duty?" I asked

"When the prince released all the wizards energy back into the Enchanted Forest it certainly promoted growth in more things than the trees, several fairly unpleasant creatures grabbed onto the extra power floating around and have become quite dangerous . In addition, some guardian enchantments become far larger and more fearsome than they to be ought."

"Too much magic and they become dangerous." Like me.

Rachel gave me a soft, sympathetic look and seemed to read my mind. "No, not like you. No question that getting your power, even partially, at such a turbulent age couldn't have been easy but you were mostly in control. You probably did accidentally burn some things when you got angry?

I nodded.

"But no one got hurt by it."

I hedged. There'd been burns nothing much, but painful little blisters and redness. And loosing part of your shop had to count.

"No permanent damage."

It had all healed, or been replaced. My father had been very good at fixing or paying people back for anything that I'd damaged. I shook my head reluctantly.  
"Not terribly dangerous then." She said gently " I am sorry I should have watched my tongue, my brother is tactless, which the head wound doesn't help. But I'm supposed to be better."

"Why?"

"I'm not a fire-witch." I gaped at her but she went right on talking as if that wasn't huge. "Besides you aren't terribly off schedule, you would have been getting powers soon anyway.

"Really?" I managed, trying to keep up.

"In another few years, yes. It does depend on the person, to some extent, but most of my sisters and brothers started developing they're fire-magic around twenty."

"Wait, how many siblings do you have?"

"Three"

"And they're all fire-witches?" I thought they were supposed to be rare

"Yes."

"How?"

"Both my parents were, and from families of fire-witches I suppose it's got something to do with heredity. Though how I turned out as a non-fire-witch is still a mystery."

"Maybe you just haven't developed them yet."

She held up a lock of chestnut hair, with only slight highlights of red and shook her head. "My parents' were both fire-witch, they could spot a fellow fire-witch baby. They saw that I wasn't one right off. The whole family rallied around me. I was the youngest, and to be babied anyway but they really worked to show me I was no different. They loved me as much as the others, treated me the same, taught me magic along with everyone else." There was sadness to her smile.

"It was hard. Even for the basic magics. They saw it, felt it somehow so they knew just what to do. And I couldn't. I wasn't a fire-witch so magic didn't come as instinctively and easily for me as it did for the others. Still, I always wanted… hoped they were wrong."

She sat down in the chair that Brandel had just vacated. "I know what it's like wanting the power, half killing yourself trying to will it into being and getting nothing."

I sat down on the floor next to her. "But you knew, nobody told you, you had to. "

"People in the town, always forgot about the one non-witch among the pack, mistook me for a sibling in spite of my hair. But really I expected it of me told myself, I ought to be able to. It's worse that way don't you think.

I thought of hours spent staring at the fire wood, hidden moments when I stick my hand into the middle of the fire just to make sure that I was still resistant to the heat. I thought of times when I'd tried to call back the fire that I'd called in anger.

Rachel turned over her hand, showing dozens of tiny little burn scars.

"All those private little failures you try to keep quiet. They noticed it though, fairly early too. My parents saw how it was poisoning me to watch my siblings develop a talent I'd never have. So they apprenticed me to a sorceress mother was friends with."

"They sent you away?!" I gasped

"It was probably the best thing they could've done for me. It's easier to believe that fire-magic isn't the only thing in the world when you're surrounded by people who don't have it. And compared to people, without an instinctive grasp of magic to make them into prodigies I was actually very good at magic."

"I'm not a prodigy."

She raised eyebrow at me. "How long did it take Morwen to teach you the spells she gave you? A day? With no training whatsoever before that? How well have they worked for you? How much have you adapted them since?"

I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out.

"My mentor was very impressed, I went farther and faster than I thought possible." Her eyes lit up and the sadness melted out of her smile " I learned to fly and heal" she gestured towards the pot on the fire," which I've always wanted to do, and to help people. I became somewhat of the go-to girl for fire-witch questions. Having lived with them for so long and yet not possessing the famous temper." She grinned, quick and wicked and suddenly looked a lot like her brother. "Sometimes I think I was born a non-fire-witch just to introduce some sanity to my family, it's a wonder the house didn't go up in flames".

There was a muffled "I heard that" from the other room. I choked back a chuckle then thought about what she'd said.

"You want me to do the same, do something else for a while and just.."

"Let it sort itself out naturally, yes. This sort of thing needs time. And if you don't find something to distract yourself its just going to make it worse."

" I'm already sort of doing that, I mean I'm going to be the new Princess for the King of dragons

"That's perfect, dragon magic is very interesting and dragons are used to people slinging fire during arguments. You won't have to worry about hurting anyone while you get your magic under control."

"I have it under control now, well sort of, if I'm polite I can use it whenever I want." Rachel blinked at me. I could feel my face turn red "Its Daystar and his stupid sword's fault."

She burst out laughing. I'm sorry I know that's terrible for you. Being around fire-witches I know how they hate to be polite. But oh…I can imagine my brothers…" She wiped a tear away then sat thinking for a moment. "It's actually not a bad idea though, we don't know how your magic's or your control has been affected, in the long term, by trying to force it to come out at a young age. This gives you a very deliberate lever. If you ever feel out of control can just be rude all the time. It could actually be very useful."

"I'm not keeping it."

"Of course not. Heaven forbid a fire-witch be polite longer than she needs to me. I'm just pointing out the sense. It might help you from roasting the knights who start showing up to rescue you."

"What? I'm not even a real princess."

"Neither was I but when they hear about a girl in a tower or being held by a dragon, knights seem to decide that she must be worth saving. Even if she insists it's not necessary. I was ready to blast a few of the more stubborn ones and I supposedly have a cool head."

I looked at the woman with her calm, lovely face and wave of auburn hair and then down at my short, scrawny soot stained self, with my wild mess of curls.

"I don't think it'll be a problem."

She smiled. "Just you wait."


	2. On Accounts of Adventures

There was a problem with the doors in the Enchanted Forest, they could not close without some sort of dramatics: a slam, a creak, a woosh, or something equally showy. It did not lend itself to stealth, but I figured the residents of the castle probably got so used to it that they tuned it out and probably wouldn't give me away. I listened for footsteps just in case.

"Shiara?"

I jumped about a foot in the air and whirled around to glare at Daystar, who was staring at me quizzically from the window seat.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

He shrugged "I wanted a quiet place to write". He indicated the small desk on his lab and the huge stack of papers beside him. "What are you doing? I thought you and Telemain would be experimenting with his new theory on fire resonance."

"We were, and then Morwen came in talking about fittings for something and Telemain insisted that he didn't have time and why couldn't he just wear his robes. And then the two of them started bickering again and your mother came in and I had to escape or I would have been drawn into the whole mess."

Daystar blinked at me. "Since when do you mind arguing?"

I glared again. "When it's about weddings. I don't know what I'm doing. Part of the whole not-being-a-princess deal is that I was never taught how to arrange big party deals."

"Morewen isn't a princess either." He pointed out, sensibly, "Nor are most people who get married and they still manage to organize big party deal, I'm sure you'd be fine."

"I don't want to" I muttered

"Ah, the root of the problem." He turned his face away but I could hear the smile in his voice.

"Don't look so amused, you're just as at risk. If they find me here they'll drag you into it too."

"Maybe, but I'm already occupied, doing legitimate work."

"What work?"

"Writing my account of the war with the wizards for Willin as promised. Actually as promised by you for both of us."

"I think my exact words were 'yeah all right, we'll do it, whatever' I didn't say promise in their anywhere. And that as just so he'd stop reading off of that stupid list of things-you-had-to-do so and let you help with the experiments. We needed someone from the ruling family!"

"You said 'yeah alright, we'll do it, as long as you shut up and let him take part in these important experiments.' It was a conditional thing and he fulfilled his end of the bargain."

"He didn't exactly voluntarily fulfill his end…"

"But he stopped talking and I got to go help with the experiments, so we should fulfill our end and write up our reports for the history books."

"Hmph." I plopped myself down on the window seat across from him. "If I was the one who agreed, and without your consent, you shouldn't have to do it."

He shrugged, "a little late for that " he said, indicating the stack of paper next to him. "I'm almost finished."

"Well then I guess you ought to finish"

"It can wait." Set his pen down. I gave him a blank stare. "For later" he clarified. "When you're not visiting."

"Oh for pity's sake" I muttered and grabbed the top sheaf of papers. "Look I can entertain myself for a little while, while you finish."

"You don't have to. We can…"

"Yes I do," I interrupted. "Because I have to know if you said anything bad about me, before its put in the history books. And while conveniently here so I can singe your eyebrows for it."

"I didn't. But go ahead and check for yourself."

I knew the story of course, he'd told me most of it in the beginning, when there was nothing to do on the road. But it was different to read it all set down in his nice, neat script.

"You sound so formal." I commented

Daystar shifted slightly, "Well it's a history. I don't want to be do conversational and accidentally offend someone out of lack of respect. And if I become king I don't want people to think I don't take things seriously."

Of course this was Daystar I was talking to, everything had to be fair and balanced. I muttered something about how if someone wanted my point of view on history then they had to be prepared to not like some of my opinions and just deal with it, and went back to reading.

That came back to bite me in the rear quite quickly. I winced.

"Did you really have to include all this?"

"What?"

I jabbed a finger at my introduction to the story. "I sound like a total weepy milksop" and so over-emotional it was sad.

"We did because I heard you crying."

I groaned.

"But under the circumstances, getting kidnapped by wizards and all, most people would be fairly distressed. Plus it does explain the rest of your behavior."

I snorted "You mean how horrifically rude I was and jumping down your throat at every little detail?"

"Actually I was referring to the fact that you got trapped in a hedge circle. But if you feel you were inordinately rude I'm sure we can put that down to your distress as well." I glanced up sharply, he had a perfectly sincere face but his eyes were dancing. I grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at him. He ducked.

"You left out most of our conversations, too." I noted.

"Well, that wasn't necessary for people to know to understand the story. And you told me a lot of your life, which I didn't know if you would want me to share with the rest of the world. Those conversations are, well, more personal."

I smiled at him and there was a long period of just sitting in companionable silence.

I winced at the description of Daystar's wounded hand but, Daystar appeared to be writing furiously and I didn't think he'd want me to interrupt by apologizing yet again.

A few pages later I couldn't restrain a sharp bark of laughter.

"You were being so careful about being taken seriously and you intend to leave _this_ in." I pointed to the besotted description of the idiotic princess.

Daystar read it and colored slightly. "Well she was beautiful."

"Very, very beautiful." I read.

"Well, I didn't have much of a basis for comparison. Not many girls come through the Enchanted Forest, and the ones who do are normally, well enchanted."

"You'd met me."

"Yes…"

"So, I'd be a main part of your basis for comparison."

"Umm…"

"And by going on about how beautiful she was you meant how much more beautiful than me." I raised an eyebrow. I wasn't actually angry about the comparison. Well not _that_ angry. I know I'm no gorgeous princes. I don't particularly like having it rubbed in my face. And I thought Daystar was an idiot for falling for that twit. But it was really funny to watch him stutter and stammer and put his foot in his mouth.

"I didn't mean it like that…"

"I didn't merit quite such a lengthy description, as I re-call. You described the color and my hair and my tunic, you went into _her_ flaming foot position."

" To be fair, you had just been crying, after falling out of a tree, after fleeing from the wizards who kidnapped you. You may not have been looking your best." I had to fight back a grin at his horrified expression as he realized what he'd just said. "And besides the circumstance – your story somewhat distracted me from your appearance."

"You seemed to find her story quite fascinating, too."

He glanced over at me sharply, then threw the pillow back at me. "That wasn't nice. I thought you were actually upset."

I stopped trying to hold back my grin. "I'm not nice" I declared. " I do think you should take it out, it makes you sound silly. Though I suppose it explains why you were stupid enough to promise her sword."

"Thank you for that."

"Any time."

I read on. I will admit that my handling of the dragonet had been embarrassingly ham-handed, threatening to burn his nose off, indeed, I sounded like a stupid knight. But Daystar was still overly formal and really quick to assume dragons would eat anyone. I almost suggested taking it out but most dragons seem to like the idea that humans think they're ten times fiercer than they really are.

I got to the section about the fire-witch's castle and sucked in a breath. It really wasn't something I wanted to re-live but I'd been a statue for part of it so it was probably a good idea to fill in the gaps as much as possible. He hadn't told me that the witch had offered to let him go or that he'd almost died. It seemed that King Mendebar was right about Enchanted Forest royalty being lucky.

And then came the discussion of turning me back. He'd liked the idea of kissing me. I wasn't sure how to take it but, there it was in black and white. I could feel my ears going red. I hadn't really thought about the time, I'd just been talking to the fire-witch from where I'd standing so the feeling of lips on mine had been really creepy. I'd thought it was her. And what with being helpless and stuck as a statue and remembering people tortured to death, mind was not exactly in a good place at the time.

But if I ignored everything around it the actual sensation hadn't been…bad. And if I realized it was Daystar and thought about it knowing he was the person who'd been kissing me it was…nice was the wrong word. Sure it felt…safe but it also made me feel…strange, nervous and jittery.

Daystar looked up and noticed me staring at him. "What"

I shook my head, glad that my hair hid my burning ears, I didn't want to be thinking about kissing Daystar or thinking about him thinking about kissing me, it made things confusing.

"No, something's wrong. What part are you at?" His eyes fell to the paper I was holding.

"Oh" he said quietly, then his eyes widened with a different sort of understanding and he blushed bright red "Oh!"

"Yeah" no avoiding it then "You sure you want to leave that part in ?"

"Well, I mean if you don't mind. I just…it was part of the enchantment…but I didn't want to make it seem like the only reason I, or anyone, would kiss you was because they had to…because that seemed wrong." He looked at me nervously "I can take it out if you want."

"It's your story."

"Okay."

There was a moment of awkward silence.

"But given your last performance. I think you should modify it to include all the awkward stuttering that was obviously part of it."

He laughed and the tension dissolved. "As long as I get to make similar edits when you write _yours._"

"I already did." I declared loftily.

He grinned. "Well then, it's only fair that I should begin my commentary of your account. Did you bring it?"

"No, I burned it."

"What!" He gaped at me.

"I burned it. I told Willin that I'd write the stupid thing but I never said what I'd do with it after."

I hadn't actually. But, unlike Daystar, I hadn't written formally, I'd written what I'd thought and I didn't want a whole bunch of strangers poking around and commenting on my thoughts until I was a few years dead. Maybe I'd show Daystar later once he wouldn't feel obligated to give Willin a copy like maybe, after Willin had published his big book of history. Future generations would just have to make do with Daystar's formal, fair, and balanced account.


End file.
